February is the month Canadians look to for signs winter may come to an early end. It’s also the month when trademark practitioners around the world eagerly await Brand Finance’s Global 500 report. With an impressive 42% increase in brand value, AMAZON jumped from 3rd spot last year, to take the lead this year. Staying steady at number 2 was APPLE, seeing a 37% increase in brand value. The former leader, GOOGLE, now comes in 3rd, with a relatively modest 10% increase in brand value (it’s affiliated YOUTUBE brand, however, saw a 114% increase, vaulting from number 112 to 42!). While there was movement within the top ten brands, as a group these remained the same as last year, highlighting the staying power of already dominant brands. The top brands remained principally tech-focused and for the first time since the Global 500 study began, the top 5 were all technology brands. Rounding out the top ten in 2018 were SAMSUNG, FACEBOOK, AT&T, MICROSOFT, VERIZON, WALMART and ICBC. As is evident, United States-based brands dominated, but Chinese brands continue to make strong gains: in 2008 they accounted for a mere 3% of the total brand value (lagging far behind other countries), and in 2018 they account for 15%, coming in second to the United States (48% in 2008 to 43% today). According to the report, the strongest brand of the year was DISNEY (ranking 31 overall in value), while the top Canadian brand by value was RBC at number 107.

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Neil Melliship is a Partner and co-chair of the Intellectual Property and Information Technology practice groups at the Vancouver-based Canadian law firm of Clark Wilson LLP. Neil is a lawyer and a registered Canadian Trademark Agent, who actively speaks and writes on trademark and other IP issues including those relating to the Internet, domain name disputes and e-commerce. Neil is consistently rated as a Leading Trademark Practitioner—Individuals: Prosecution and Strategy, by the World Trademark Review (WTR) 1000. Neil is also listed in the Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory as Rated Repeatedly Recommended in the area of Intellectual Property. He has also been repeatedly named by Best Lawyers in Canada in the categories of Intellectual Property Law, Technology Law and Information Technology Law.